Designing a Display for the Area Air Defense Commander. The Role of 3-D Perspective Views and Realistic Track Symbols in Achieving Rapid Situation Awareness.

Abstract

The Area Air Defense Commander (AADC) plans, coordinates, and executes air defense operations in a theater of operations. This responsibility requires a clear tactical picture of friendly and hostile forces and their capabilities. A new display has been prototyped for this purpose. This prototype display has a three-dimensional (3-D) perspective format and uses novel volumetric (realistic) symbols. It has been touted as enabling users to become more rapidly aware of the tactical picture than a comparable two-dimensional (2-D) display. This study addresses two questions: (1) Does the 3-D display format promote more rapid Situation Awareness (SA) than a conventional 2-D display format? (2) Do the new detailed 3-D volumetric realistic symbols enhance performance over their more conventional counterparts? Three participant groups observed a 9-minute scenario in three different ways. The first group saw the scenario in a 3-D perspective view with realistic symbols. The second group saw a 2-D top-down view with realistic symbols. The third group saw a 2-D top-down view with conventional (non-realistic) symbols. The scenario was stopped every 30 seconds in each condition and an online questionnaire assessed participant SA attributes of depicted tracks. The authors conclude that the 2-D top-down display with conventional (non-realistic) symbols provide superior SA during the first 4 minutes and that 3-D displays with realistic symbols provide superior SA for altitude, attitude, and heading attributes. Based on this study, the authors recommend that designers consider using 2-D top-down displays with conventional (non-realistic) symbols when very rapid SA is necessary, 2-D or 3-D realistic symbology when rapid heading appreciation is necessary, and 3-D displays when rapid altitude and attitude appreciation outweighs other factors.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Aug 01, 1999
Accession Number
ADA368175

Entities

People

  • Cary A. Mitchell
  • E. Schiller
  • H. S. Smallman

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Air Platforms
  • Human Systems
  • Space
  • Weapons Technologies

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Air Defense
  • Aircrafts
  • Altitude
  • Computer Programming
  • Computers
  • Engineering
  • Geometry
  • Human Factors Engineering
  • Human-Machine Interaction
  • Human-Machine Interfaces
  • Motor Skills
  • Psychology
  • Situational Awareness
  • Standards
  • Three Dimensional
  • Two Dimensional
  • Virtual Reality

Readers

  • Human-Computer Interaction (HCI).
  • Team-Based Human-Centered Cognitive Task Decision Making and Information Performance.